BURG launch a new smartwatch – could it be a game-changer?

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Smartwatches are an emerging technology, and today Burg have launched a salvo at the likes of Apple and Google, by beating them to market – with a watch that has it’s own SIM card, meaning there’s no need to tether to your phone.

The Hong Kong Smarwatch, as their calling it, is being positioned as a replacement for your phone for those times that you don’t really want to be carrying around – like going to the gym, or carrying out major surgery.

Once your SIM card is inside, you can make and take calls (there’s a built in mic and speaker), send text messages and listen to music. It’s all controlled through a touchscreen. If that sounds a little fiddly, or you have fat fingers then worry not – there’s even a stylus is stored in the main body of the watch for more precision screen interactions.

There’s a built in 1.3MP camera – and you can increase storage on the watch up to 16GB via MicroSD. It can even record video.

There’s also bluetooth – for sending your music off to a bluetooth speaker, and interacting with other devices. You can even tether it to your proper phone (a la Pebble or the Samsung smartwatch), to access functionality on there too (though the manufacturers are unspecific as to what).

The press release is sadly unclear on whether the watch will have any data capabilities of it’s own (can it check my emails?) – though it does talk of GPRS capabilities. That’s right – GPRS. I know smartwatches feed into the retro-cool qualities of Dick Tracy – but it doesn’t mean the mobile internet has to be suitably retro too!

It’ll be interesting to see what sort of reception the watch gets when it launches – and whether it will end up being a big player in the smartwatch market.

The Burg Hong Kong SmartWatch will be available soon – and will set you back £259.99.